I remember hearing (though can't find it on wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dat_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dat_(software)) or elsewhere) that

I remember hearing (though can't find it on wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dat_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dat_(software)) or elsewhere) that the project was born out of wanting to give some fault tolerance to datasets from publicly funded research